Here are some of the most creative and visually interesting books of the year—perfect the “right brain” thinkers on your list.

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HAND JOB: A Catalog of Type by Michael Perry (Princeton Architectural Press).

Easily one of my personal favourite books of the year, HAND JOB is a collection of hand-drawn type. It’s becoming more and more popular, used in design work, advertising, album covers, clothing design and more. Michael Perry, who is himself a creator of fantastic hand-drawn type, has compiled top hand-drawn typographers from all over the world in one visually stunning package.

Click here for some photos of the book’s interior, and an interview with the Michael Perry on Book By It’s Cover.

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TAKING THINGS SERIOUSLY: 75 Objects with Unexpected Significance by Joshua Glenn and Carol Hayes (Princeton Architectural Press).

Everybody has one of these: an seemingly ordinary object that you treat like the crown jewels. TAKING THINGS SERIOUSLY features 75 of these items--from a soda bottle to a rubber pig, from a death mask to a shrivelled artichoke--that people have collected and kept. If you’re looking for quirky, original and compelling book, TAKING THINGS SERIOUSLY is it.

Many of us invest ordinary objects with other sorts of extraordinary significance, too. My friend Tony crams a U.S. Navy 100-pound practice bomb into his tiny workspace for much the same reason that Greg, a colleague of mine at the Boston Globe, displays a wobbly wooden Santa in his kitchen year-round. These doohickeys are actually fossils, petrified evidence of a vanished epoch (young adulthood). Other writers, thinkers, designers and artists of my acquaintance cherish things—sunglasses found at a yard sale, a colored-sand-filled glass clown, a one-eyed ceramic frog—for equally irrational reasons.

--Joshua Glenn on DesignObserver

Here’s a short excerpt from the book on DesignObserver.

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TO INFINITY AND BEYOND: The Story of Pixar Animation Studios (Chronicle Books).

Every movie I see from Pixar just amazes me. Did you see how REAL the rats’ hair in Ratatouille looked? (Yeah, I know, a little TOO real for rats in the kitchen...) TO INFINITY AND BEYOND is the definitive book on Pixar, chronicling it’s 20 year-history. The book is (of course!) gorgeous to look at, full of concept art, storyboards, and snapshots, plus interviews with the people who made it all happen.

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WHITE RAPIDS by Pascal Blanchet (Drawn & Quarterly).

For another visual treat, open up WHITE RAPIDS. Written and illustrated by award-winning Québécois cartoonist Pascal Blanchet, WHITE RAPIDS is graphic novel that blends fact and fiction to tell the story of a Canadian town is forced to shut down after the local water and power company closes. WHITE RAPIDS is retro artwork at its best.

Click here to read some reviews and here for a sneak peak.

UPDATE: Pascal Blanchet was interviewed by Jian Ghomeshi on CBC Radio One’s ‘Q’ on Monday Dec 5th. Click here to listen to the interview (it’s towards the end of the podcast).

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Still designing the perfect gift? Maybe some of our other Gift Guides will help.